ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Bribery is sometimes necessary, says Tebbit, when British jobs and security are at stake

Last week the Editor of ConservativeHome celebrated the Court's criticism of Tony Blair's decision to halt the SFO probe into the BAe-Saudi arms deal.  Lord Tebbit offers an alternative view in The Daily Mail.  Here are highlights from the former Party Chairman's piece:

Bribery is unfortunately necessary for British jobs and security co-operation with Saudi Arabia: "To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling's poem, Mandalay, "somewheres East of Suez, where the best is like the worst/where there ain't no Ten Commandments", they play by different rules to the ones we stand by here. I thought of this again when the High Court last week wrongly denounced the Government for abandoning the bribery investigation into the massive British Aerospace arms deal with Saudi Arabia... This is Britain's biggest-ever arms deal, signed more than 20 years ago and worth £43billion - yes, £43billion.  If we abandon it, we will put thousands of British jobs on the line and jeopardise relations with Saudi Arabia, a vital ally in the struggle against terrorism.  At the bottom line, without Saudi's cooperation, British lives could be lost to jihadist terror.  I have personal experience of this affair.  As a junior trade minister and then as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, under Margaret Thatcher, I had the job of promoting British exports - whatever they were.  The driving principle of the task was relatively simple: no one has to buy from us, but unless they do, we are unable to pay for the food, oil and raw materials we need to survive."

We should aim to eliminate corruption in the long-term: "Eliminating bribery throughout the world should of course be a priority, and it is utterly wrong to use it here in Britain or in other countries where it has been largely eradicated.  But let us remember that some British companies have to operate in places where the world is not as we would like it to be."

Our judges' double standards: ""No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice," they said.  Come off it. Which of them stood up and objected when the Government let out of jail IRA/Sinn Fein and Loyalist terrorists by the busload, claiming that the bombings and killings would start again if they were not released?"

Judges are increasingly behaving as lawmakers: "More and more judges are being tempted to find not according to what the law is, but according to what they think it should be.  And more and more they are using foreign law - whether from Brussels or so-called International Law - to impose their views.  As far as they are concerned, national security can take a back seat.  It seems to me that the judiciary is in danger of forgetting that policy and law are made by politicians.  And for good reason.  If politicians get it wrong, we can sack them at the next election.  They are accountable. Not so the judges."

Nick Herbert MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, will be writing for ConservativeHome on these subjects in the next few days.

Related CentreRight links: Samuel Coates wonders what Tebbit would have said to Wilberforce, Matt Sinclair on the 'judicial aristocracy' and Peter Franklin on Britain for sale

Sins of omission

Labour survived yesterday's Conservative attempts to force an inquiry into the Iraq war.  Twelve Labour MPs voted with the Opposition but William Hague's arguments (summarised on our Parliament pages) were not enough to persuade more Government backbenchers to defy their whip.

Yesterday's motion was an attempt by the Conservatives to say something about a war that is now five years old.  Many Conservatives genuinely believe that there will be benefits from an inquiry but many others simply see this exercise as a way of putting the Government on the back foot.  One Tory MP, Mark Field, admitted as much on Radio 4's Westminster Hour on Sunday night.  Tory opponents of the Iraq war were most evident in yesterday's Commons debate.  They hope that a key result of an inquiry will be further public opposition to the Iraq war and to a hawkish foreign policy.

Our key question is this: Should a call for an inquiry into the origins of the Iraq war really be the top priority of the Conservative Opposition?

Most of the current Tory leadership - David Cameron, William Hague, George Osborne, David Davis, Liam Fox - all voted for the Iraq war five years ago.  They may have a responsibility to investigate the background to their 2003 votes - and, more importantly, the votes of the governing party - but they also have a responsibility to see the liberation of Iraq concluded in the most satisfactory way possible.

But on the one strategic decision that has delivered most improvement to the people of Iraq - the Petraeus-led troops surge - the Conservative frontbench has been silent.  We asked CCHQ yesterday for a statement in support of the surge.  Nothing was forthcoming and nothing apparently exists from the last 12 months.  There have even been attempts to attribute the reduction in violence to other factors.

Britain could not have delivered a troops surge for southern Iraq because Labour has left our armed forces under-resourced and over-stretched.  The Conservatives' response to this situation has also been inadequate.  We have failed to make the case for the rebuilding of Britain's armed forces.  There's no new money on the table for our military although the defence of Britain should be any Government's first and overriding priority.  ConservativeHome proposed our own modest plan for £3bn of extra defence spending a couple of weeks ago.

The coming together of evil men, rogue regimes and devastating weapons technology is the security challenge of our time.  Yesterday's debate didn't take us much closer to a coherent Conservative response to that challenge.

3pm: James Forsyth at The Spectator encourages William Hague to go beyond "cheap publicity"

Cameron gets tough with Islamic extremists, apologists for terror and the idea of 'state multiculturalism'

Last night, keeping up his recent frenetic pace, David Cameron spoke to the Community Security Trust - an organisation that "provides physical security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews".  Here are key extracts from the speech:

We must not tolerate the apologists for terror: "The historian Michael Burleigh has written a brilliant new book I would urge you all to read.  It’s called Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism.  In it, Professor Burleigh demonstrates how, time and time again, people who have resorted to terrorism have been assisted and sustained by apologists who seek to make excuses for them.  In some cases, even to glorify them.  We saw it in the 1970s when the Red Brigades were hailed as liberators by some Italian university professors.  We saw it in the 1980s when parts of the Labour Party were prepared to appear on platforms with IRA front men.  And we see it today when some people attempt to justify suicide bombers and call them ‘martyrs’."

The "nauseating" middle class Britons who are the terrorists' fellow travellers: "Extremism is not confined to any particular religious or ethnic group.  During protests against the conflict in Lebanon, we witnessed the nauseating sight of well-scrubbed, middle class English people… marching through central London holding placards that read ‘We are all Hizbollah’.  That is the extremist mindset in action.  These are the same people who urge a boycott of Israeli goods and academics… while saying nothing about China, Iran or Zimbabwe.  Unless we challenge such attitudes and expose them for the morally-bankrupt nonsense they are… they will spread through the body politic and become the received wisdom of millions."

What can the British Government do to persuade young Muslims that they should reject terror and fully embrace the British way?

The title of this post was the question asked by Paul Goodman MP within a speech he gave to the New Culture Forum on Monday night.

Mr Goodman, Shadow Minister for Social Cohesion, analysed three potential strategic answers to that question: appeasement, assimilation and integration.  We summarise the speech below and this PDF contains the full text.

Appeasement is a course that Mr Goodman quickly rejects: "If our armed forces withdraw from Afghanistan – the argument runs – if we simply let Iran acquire nuclear weapons without sanctions or resistance; if we actively seek the replacement of our allies in the Islamic world by Islamists, if we abandon our support for the existence of Israel and if we connive in Britain at special legal dispensations for Muslims, then the problem will go away... You don’t have to be a neo-conservative – as I am not – to dismiss this option with the contempt it deserves.  It’s hard to perceive how abandoning parts of Afghanistan to Al Qaeda could help weaken that movement rather than strengthen it; how writing special sharia provisions into British law could strengthen community cohesion rather than weaken it, above all, how knuckling under to extremism could possibly help mainstream Islam worldwide."

Paul Goodman also rejects assimilation: "At heart, this school of thought usually believes that Islam in particular, if not religion in general, is at the root of separatist extremism... If government is to hold that religion in general is a problem – a habit that, like smoking, is bad for your health, and is to be tolerated only in private, if at all – it must surely move towards, say, cutting off all state support from faith schools, removing all tax breaks from religious-based charities and, eventually, scrapping the Coronation Service.  You can make your own judgement about whether such courses of action are more or less likely to lower school standards, remove support from vulnerable people, offload new burdens on the taxpayer, damage civil society, harm the current quest for shared values and dent our common sense of Britishness.  I’ve already made mine."

Mr Goodman then devotes a large section of his speech to discussing whether Islam is different from other religions and deserves special prohibitions.  His strong conclusion is that there is enough hope within certain traditions of Islam to firmly reject the idea that Islam needs to be suppressed.  He focuses particularly on Sufism as catalogued by Bernard Lewis.

Cameron to call for preachers of hate to be banned from the UK

ConservativeHome has been given an advance copy of what David Cameron will say at the first meeting of the CDU-Conservative Party working group later today.

Responding to the news that Yusuf al-Qaradawi may be granted a visa, Cameron will call on Gordon Brown to act quickly and ban preachers of hate from entering the country.

Peter Cuthbertson made this point on CentreRight on Sunday.

We will be there to check against delivery and listen to the Q&A. As always if you have any good questions we will try to ask one on your behalf.

We've put the speech into bitesize chunks below.  Download a PDF of David Cameron's remarks in full.

Cameron reaffirms special relationship

I'll report a lot more later on David Cameron's Washington visit.  The day began (photo above) with David Cameron paying respects to the American soldiers who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He's just spoken at the Brookings Institute about the Balkans.  A very authoritative speech and cleverly chosen.  Mr Cameron raised a neglected issue of looming seriousness but avoided the minefields of Middle East policy.

William Hague is accompanying the Conservative leader.  Andy Coulson is also here in a sign of the media importance of this trip.  The Tory delegation enjoyed dinner with Mike Bloomberg in New York last night and also saw Chuck Hagel, the most anti-war Republican Senator.  Meetings are also scheduled with Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley (National Security Adviser) and, I'm 99% sure, George W Bush himself.  Mr Cameron won't be meeting any Democrats but his choice of Brookings, a left-leaning organisation with little influence on this administration, to host his speech was interesting.  If Mr Cameron had chosen the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute, for example, he would have been guaranteed a bigger audience with better connections to Team Bush.  But if that was one 'Im-a-different-kind-of-Conservative' message, the overall flavour has been decidely pro-American.  These are the opening paragraphs of Mr Cameron's Brookings speech:

"This is my first visit to Washington as Britain's Leader of the Opposition.

I wanted to mark it this morning by paying my respects at Arlington National Cemetery, where so many of your country's heroes are buried.  Men and women who have served not just the United States, but the cause of freedom the world over.  In Europe, we will never forget the sacrifices Americans have made for our liberty.

I and my colleagues represent a new generation of leadership in the Conservative Party.   But the Party I lead today in Opposition, and which I hope to lead in Government, is proudly Atlanticist, proud of the ties of history and family that bind our two nations.  Britain and America have stood alongside each other in so many of the battles for liberty over the last century.  In two World Wars. My own grandfather landed with the liberation forces on the Normandy beaches and fought alongside our American allies before he was wounded and evacuated to Britain.

We stood together in the battle against Soviet expansionism.  And today we must stand together against global terrorism fuelled by a perversion of the Islamic faith.  I've seen our soldiers serving together in the deserts of Afghanistan and the dust of Iraq, and I pay tribute to their professionalism, their courage, and their comradeship.

The relationship between our two countries is indeed special.   And it will remain special for any British Government I lead - grounded in the long history we share together, and the ability to talk freely to each other as only old friends can.  My view is clear: the cause of peace and progress is best served by an America that is engaged in the world. And the values we hold dear are best defended when Britain and the United States, and the United States and Europe, stand together."

David Davis: Met Chief Blair's position "untenable"

About an hour ago we learnt that the Metropolitan Police have been found guilty of endangering the public in pursuing Jean Charles de Menezes.

Sir Ian Blair has just been on TV promising to learn the lessons of the trial and vowing to continue to lead the Met.  That is not enough for Shadow Home Secretary David Davis.

Mr Davis has followed LibDem calls for Blair to go:

"There is something wrong with a process of accountability that, two years on, continues to prevent the publication of the review of the events leading up to 22 July 2005. Health and Safety legislation is an inappopriate mechanism for scrutinising a counter-terrorism operation - and risks a counter-productive impact on policing.  However, the trial has shed light on the serial failures that led to the tragic death of Mr De Menezes. They include failures of organisation, command and operations. The failures were systemic, falling within the clear responsibility of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. His position is now untenable, in light of these findings and the overriding need to restore public confidence.  We think the jury is right to say Cressida Dick should not be blamed for this failure. Neither, should the frontline officers, because this was a serial failure of organisation, training, tactics and resourcing. Only one person can be held overall accountable for that.”

3pm 2/11/07 update: Letter from Davis to Jacqui Smith...

You couldn't make it up

Today's Sunday Times:

"The Foreign Office has cleared dozens of Iranians to enter British universities to study advanced nuclear physics and other subjects with the potential to be applied to weapons of mass destruction.  In the past nine months about 60 Iranians have been admitted to study postgraduate courses deemed “proliferation-sensitive” by the security services. The disciplines range from nuclear physics to some areas of electrical and chemical engineering and microbiology."

Conservative Universities spokesman David Willetts, who uncovered this fact, commented:

“Given that we need to have tougher sanctions against Iran, it does seem extraordinary that the government is not yet stopping Iranians coming here to study nuclear physics. There is legitimate concern about what some students have been studying.”

Cameron distances himself from liberal interventionism

David Cameron has just addressed a conference of the CDU/CSU in Berlin.  He has used the speech to distance himself from the liberal interventionism of Bush and Blair.   The speech should not come as a surprise.  David Cameron has not visited Washington since becoming Tory leader and has ridiculed the idea that “you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000ft.”

There are good sections in the speech.  There is a reasonably strong statement on Afghanistan.  David Cameron announces a new security dialogue between Dame Pauline Neville-Jones and the German interior ministry.  He emphasises border protection and greater integration between domestic and foreign security policy-making.

But the speech is confusing overall.  First of all is Mr Cameron's promise to put national security first.  This, he says, is a change from Tony Blair: "To help protect international security, any state must put its own national security first."  This, surely, is a false choice.  Every sensible state will always do what is necessary to protect national security (clamp down on extremist groups, police the borders, invest in the intelligence services etc) but why does that have to be in tension with international security efforts?  Distancing the Conservative Party from Blair and Bush may be good politics but what does this 'putting national security first' really mean?

Those who are willing to believe that Cameron is not shrinking away from external threats can take some comfort from his commitment to "apply sanctions which really target Iranian financial institutions and trade."  There's not much else to go on, however.  The speech is most notable for what it doesn't say.  There's no commitment to increase investment in our armed forces.  There's no words about Saudi Arabia's export of subversive propaganda.  Nothing on missile defence.  There's no commitment to reform of the United Nations.  Instead we get a commitment to increase the size of the Security Council which only risks making the UN more unwieldy and less likely to intervene in places like Rwanda and Darfur.

Cameron says that he is against "liberal interventionism":

"We should replace the doctrine of liberal interventionism, famously propounded by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech in Chicago in 1999, with the doctrine of liberal conservatism – conservatism not in its narrow party political meaning, but in the sense of a sceptical attitude towards the ability of states to create utopias."

All of us are wiser about nation-building after recent years but my overall view is that interventionism is often necessary, although sacrificial.  Many, many more people have died when we have not intervened (Rwanda, Darfur, Srebrenica) than when we have (Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan).  I am not in favour of the kind of badly-prepared interventions that characterised the Bush and Blair years but more responsible leaders - McCain, for example, said from pretty much day one that many more troops were needed in Iraq - would have avoided the situation that Petraeus is now beginning to redeem.

The loss of life and chaos in post-Saddam Iraq has rightly horrified the world although the situation may finally be turning around.  I emphasise "may".   What we cannot afford, however, is for the world to be blind to the situations in Pakistan, Iran, Syria and other nations.  There's plenty in Mr Cameron's speech that points in the direction of a more isolationist Britain but the text is confused enough for liberal interventionists like myself to still have some hope.

Trimble: Hamas must renounce violence before talks can begin

Earlier today the Conservative peer and former First Minister of Northern Ireland, Baron Trimble, launched a paper entitled Misunderstanding Ulster.  Published by Conservative Friends of Israel, the paper warns against learning the wrong lessons from the NI peace process- a process for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

David Trimble is particularly concerned at the ways in which certain individuals are reading the process.  Former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain has said dialogue with the most intractable of people and without conditions was one lesson of the process.  David Trimble strongly disagrees with that conclusion.  The NI process, he states, was based on clear preconditions - established in Article IX of the 1993 Downing Street Declaration.  Parties to talks about NI's future had to commit to non-violence and to exclusively peaceful means.

Lord Trimble believes that it is perfectly legitimate for Israel to insist that Hamas must first sign up to the principles of The Quartet before any negotiations are possible.  Those principles are recognition of Israel, repudiation of violence and recognition of past agreements.

The former leader of the UUP fears that Hamas may be more in the frame of mind that the IRA were in the 1970s than became true by the 1990s.  In the 1970s the IRA saw the British government as weak and thought they could achieve victory.  A 1972 secret offer of unconditional talks by the then Tory Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw confirmed in the IRA's minds that Britain wanted to "surrender".  This only emboldened them.  A weak Israeli acceptance of unconditional talks may only feed the same feeling within Hamas, Trimble warned.

In a Q&A period, David Trimble (pictured with CFI's James Arbuthnot MP) emphasised the importance of foreign states.  The Irish government was faithful to the Downing Street principles, he said, throughout the process.  Unfortunately there are too many states in the Middle East who are always ready to give comfort to Hamas.

Conservative MP Michael Ancram has made the case for talking to Hamas in an article for ConservativeHome.

Download a PDF of Misundertanding Ulster.

PS The image on the cover of Misunderstanding Ulster is a real photograph from Northern Ireland.  In the 1970s the IRA became political allies of the PLO and loyalist areas started, in reaction, to fly the Israeli flag alongside their own patriotic colours.

4.25pm: Melanie Phillips has written about Lord Trimble's paper here.

Tory Muslims' report defends Iran's nuclear ambitions and offers comfort to extremists

The Telegraph highlights a number of recommendations from a recent report on security by the Conservative Muslim Forum.  Having had a chance to look at the report (that appears to have been written last month) I fear that The Telegraph's report is an accurate summary.  I've also discovered other troubling recommendations.

The Forum, chaired by Lord Mohamed Sheikh, enobled in 2005 by Michael Howard, offers comfort to Iran and its ambition for nuclear weapons: "Given Iran's position in the Middle East, facing a nuclear armed Israel, Iran appears to have legitimate reasons for seeking nuclear weapons for defensive purposes."  Let us never forget that Iran's President has spoken of wiping Israel off the face of the map.  Last year Iran hosted a conference that gave comfort to Holocaust-deniers.  There can be no equivalence between Israel and Iran.  Although not without fault, Israel is a democratic nation - besieged by totalitarian states.  Iran is a sponsor of global terror.  It is a great shame that the CMF could not have begun to made this clear.

The Forum rejects Dame Pauline Neville-Jones' suggestion that “foreign preachers and scholars advocating the rejection of the institutions and values of democracy” should be denied entry into Britain".  The Forum suggests that "If a political party wishes to campaign, constitutionally, for the abolition of democracy in the UK and its replacement by a totalitarian system, why should it not be free to do so?"

The CMF then criticises David Cameron's support for 'Zionism'.  On 12th June the Conservative leader, asked if he was a Zionist, said:

“If what you mean by Zionist, someone who believes that the Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel and a right to their country then yes I am a Zionist and I’m proud of the fact that Conservative politicians down the ages have played a huge role in helping to bring this about” and “There is something deep in our Party’s DNA that believes in Israel, the right of Israel to exist, the right of Israel to defend itself and that a deal should only happen if it means that Israel is really allowed to have peace within secure borders and real guarantees about its future”.

Nothing wrong with that but the CMF is displeased.  "Pro-zionist statements only damage relationships with Muslims nationally and internationally," the Forum concludes.

The Forum concludes that "the Muslim Council of Britain is well-respected by many Muslims and non-Muslims" and encourages the Conservative Party to recognise that.  Paul Goodman is just one of many Conservative MPs who worry about the MCB's tolerance of extremist attitudes, including its unwillingness to support Holocaust Memorial Day.

The report then defends Yusuf al-Qaradawi - a Muslim scholar who has made unacceptable remarks about homosexuals.  Conservatives have rightly criticised Ken Livingstone for having rolled out the red carpet for al-Qaradawi when he visited London.  It is deeply troubling to learn of a group within the Conservative Party giving comfort to this extremist.

4.45pm update: LGF has now picked this up and is quite depressed about the state of Britain, as has "Islamophobia Watch" which has a rather revealing tongue-in-cheek headline: Conservative Muslims back Ahmadinejad shock!

Brown's Iraq visit is strongest indication of autumn election

Gordon Brown promised to go to Parliament to make any announcement on troop withdrawals.  But today he's in Iraq announcing that 1,000 of "our boys" will be home for Christmas.

Liam Fox has accused the Prime Minister of using our troops as a "political football":

"A week ago Gordon Brown gave only around a minute of his 67 minute speech to the issues of Iraq, Afghanistan and our Armed Forces combined; but today he is happy to use our Armed Forces for a pre-election photo opportunity. Most people will see this cynicism for what it is. Our troops should not be used as a political football."

I've also learnt that no newspaper journalists were permitted to travel to Iraq with Mr Brown - only PA and television cameras.  That's all Mr Brown is interested in - television pictures.  He wants to avoid the scrutiny and background reporting of print journalists.

Newspapers are afraid to complain about these exclusions as they fear they'll lose access as a result.  They need to come together and expose this typically Brown-behaviour.  I fear they won't.

Giuliani lifts depressed Tories

Yesterday evening some of the Conservative Party's top donors mingled with MPs, including Iain Duncan Smith, and journalists, including the Editor of The Sun, at the inaugural Margaret Thatcher lecture - hosted by Liam Fox's Atlantic Bridge.  Before the Mayor spoke all of the reception talk was of an autumn election and people were very downbeat about the party's prospects.  The mood was much improved after Rudy Giuliani had spoken.  It was not a great speech and the former New York Mayor went on a little long, but his remarks were rich in content and a tonic to British Conservatives who hear too little from their own leadership about security and defence issues.

Giuliani began by paying handsome tribute to Baroness Thatcher - who looked magnificent at the main table (Liam Fox pointedly told his guests that he had enjoyed a wonderful and wide-ranging conversation with her over dinner).  The frontrunning candidate for the Republican nomination also said that he had been inspired by her leadership and conviction.  Thatcher and Reagan were the golden years in the very special relationship between Britain and America.  He joked that he was lucky she wasn't running for President.  She would certainly win!  He spent some time saying how much he also admired Nicolas Sarkozy and said that he hoped that he would do for France what Thatcherism did for Britain.  The speech also included tributes to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.  They understood the challenge of terror, he said.  The longest and warmest applause came when he paid tribute to all of the British troops that had "liberated" Iraq and Afghanistan.  They should be so proud of what they did and it was now for all politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure the job that started with those liberations is properly completed.  Pointing to Margaret Thatcher, this is not a time to go "wobbly", he said, and there must be no going back to the appeasement of pre-9/11.

His speech was built around four main themes:

1. The need for institutionalisation of intelligence-sharing. Both nations had much to learn from each other and he hoped to introduce a 'TerrorStat' intelligence system that would monitor 'precursor activities' of terrorists to act as early warning signals for the authorities in the same way that lesser crimes were used as a warning of a larger propensity to criminality in his New York war on crime.
2. Expansion of NATO.  Any nation with military readiness and a commitment to global responsibility should be able to join NATO.  He mentioned Australia, India, Israel, Japan and Singapore.  These nations might encourage existing European members of NATO to take their own responsibilities more seriously.
3. A bigger military.  All armed forces (and intelligence services) were cut too deeply after the end of the Cold War.  We need new capacities including the capacity for a large war with a nation state.  Gulp!  'Prepare for the worst but hope for the best,' Giuliani said.
4. Winning the war through ideas.  This area of ideological warfare had been neglected, he implied.

At the end of the evening Giuliani went up to Liam Fox and hugged him.  I liked the humanity in that.

PS Ben Brogan has posted this report.

***
Earlier in the day the Mayor had criticised the British system of healthcare:

"Healthcare right now in America, and I think it has been true of your experience of socialised medicine in England, is not only very expensive, it's increasingly less effective.  I had prostate cancer seven years ago. My chance of survival in the US is 82%; my chance of survival if I was here in England is below 50%.  Breast cancer, very similar.  I think there's something to the idea that there are many more private options driving the system that create altogether better results."

Noon update: Photographs of Giuliani with Blair, Brown and Thatcher

Hague responds to Petraeus report

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has obviously hired Sir Humphrey Appleby to be his new speechwriter.  Here's is civil service-speak response to General Petraeus' report to the US Congress on the progress of President Bush's surge strategy:

"It appears that the US troop surge has had mixed results so far, but it is clear that there is no purely military solution available to the situation in Iraq. The surge was intended to give a breathing space to the Iraqi government to allow it to make progress towards national reconciliation. It is of paramount importance that efforts to achieve that progress are now redoubled.
 
It is healthy that the US congress receives regular reports on the political and military situation in Iraq. As long as British troops are in that country there should also be a full, quarterly report to our parliament from the British government on the progress made.
 
Any decision concerning US troop levels is a matter for the US, although we would hope that decisions on US and UK deployments in Iraq are always made in consultation with each other. We support the reductions in British troop levels announced so far and believe that British forces should remain in Iraq only so long as they are needed for the political stability of the country, the security of Southern Iraq, and have a defensible military position. We look forward to the Government’s assessment of these factors as soon as possible, and in any event when parliament returns."

See BritainAndAmerica for much more.

8.30pm: Fraser Nelson - over at The Spectator - wishes William Hague had been more Giuliani-like.  That's a big part of the Tory problem.  We don't have a Giuliani character.

Hague speaks up for Iraqi asylum seekers who have served British troops in Basra

One of the most dangerous times for the British troops in Iraq will be during the withdrawal stage.  But the dangers will be much greater for the Iraqis who have worked with our armed forces as, for example, interpreters.

Today's Times carries a report that Gordon Brown's Government is ignoring calls from senior British army officers calling for special treatment of 91 individuals who have risked their lives by working with our troops and are now being targeted as "collaborators".  Both Denmark and the USA are making special arrangements for those Iraqis who have worked closely with their armed forces.  A leader in The Times says that Britain should not abandon "its bravest allies in Iraq".

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague is quoted in the article - encouraging a more generous response from the Government:

“Britain has benefited from the services of these Iraqis in carrying out our responsibilities in Iraq. As Britain reduces its military presence in Iraq, we ought to look to the safety of those who have risked their lives to help us.”

The Conservatives should have a tough policy on immigration but we should favour an asylum system that is generous to those people who genuinely face persecution.  William Hague is adopting the right position on this difficult issue.

This controversy comes a time when the US troops surge may be beginning to produce some advances in security.  An article in last week's New York Times by previous critics of the Iraq war confirms the positive, if not conclusive, trend identified by the BBC's John Simpson a month ago.

10.45am update from today's Washington Post: "The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months."  More here.

1.30pm: This from Damian Green, Shadow Immigration Minister: "“Anyone whose life is at risk because of work they have done for Britain must have a strong case to be granted asylum.  “Each case would have to be looked at on its merits but, just because the Government has reduced the asylum and immigration system to chaos, does not mean that we should lose sight of our proper humanitarian instincts.”

David Cameron in Afghanistan

David Cameron has arrived in Kabul at the start of a two-day fact finding mission. He warned that the West cannot afford to fail saying:

"There is no room for complacency. There are risks of failing in Afghanistan. We cannot afford to fail. If we fail we will see an increase, an increase in drugs, and dangerous instability in this region."

Cameron praised the work of British troops but said other Nato countries need to take on a greater share of the burden

"Britain is definitely bearing its share of the burden. We need more helicopters, we need more support and we need other Nato countries to play their part,"

Calling for a "hard-headed assessment" of the situation he said that changes are needed in the way the international community was operating, including a single individual to co-ordinate the civilian reconstruction effort and better co-ordination between Nato military forces.He said:

"To make sure that we succeed, we have to take tough, gritty, hard-headed decisions about making sure that there is a greater unity of purpose about what we are doing here.

William Hague: Iraq not to blame for terror wave

Interviewed for BBC1's Politics Show, Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague made it clear that he did not believe Iraq was to blame for the latest attempts to terrorise Britain.  The attacks of 9/11 happened before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, he noted.

He urged the Government to eschew confrontationalism in responding to the latest attacks and promised that Conservatives could support a longer period of detention without trial if presented with "compelling evidence" that it was justified.  That evidence had not been presented so far, he continued.  He also urged the Government to consider adopting Conservative proposals on intercept evidence and post-charge questioning.

Towards the end of the interview Mr Hague rejected calls from Edward Leigh for a greater emphasis on issues like tax, deregulation, stronger immigration controls and strong defence.  He said that Brown was not capable of delivering real change.  He was the very man who had presided over the pensions crisis and one hundred extra stealth taxes.

Earlier today George Osborne told Peter Sissons that there would be "absolutely no change in strategy" and that the party would remain "in the mainstream of British politics":

"We are not changing our strategy. Our strategy is to be in the mainstream of British politics - talking about the issues, like the NHS, like social breakdown, like pensions - that matter to people in this country."

Today's Mail on Sunday is reporting that Mr Osborne may be given new powers over party campaigns and General Election plans in the forthcoming Conservative reshuffle.

Time to turn the screw on Iran

David Cameron held another press conference in the St Stephen's Club today. Joined by William Hague he outlined a number of measures Britain should advocate against Iran for its non-compliance over the ongoing nuclear programme.

Measures the UN Security Council should institute:

• a travel ban on anyone involved in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, and on leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
• blacklisting of Bank Saderat (used by Iran to transfer money to terrorists) and a ban on trade with IRGC companies
• ban on the selling of arms and technical assistance to Iran's military
• discouraging, but not legislating against, investment in Iran's energy sector and restricting the sale of oil and gas related technology

Additional steps the EU should take:

• progressively restricting export credit guarantees to Iran, and European investment in Iranian oil and gas fields
• restricting access of Iranian banks to the European financial system
• travel ban and assets freeze on members of the IRGC
• ban on new or extended loans to Iranian state-owned enterprises

They also believe the EU should show that it is willing to pursue economic and diplomatic sanctions, that are benchmarked by Iranian compliance. See our video clip of Cameron's introductory speech below:

The press Q&A session was again dominated by grammar schools amongst other issues. I asked Cameron how Britain should respond to Iran's role in the killing of British troops in southern Iraq, through their backing of Shia militias. He didn't get into specifics, just saying that Iran's role in regional instability heightened the need for action over the nuclear programme.

Deputy Editor

Related link: John Bolton - use force to prevent a nuclear Iran

A new name for Islamism please?

Yesterday ConservativeHome readers reacted excitedly to David Cameron's suggestion that  it might be time to find an alternative to 'Islamism' as a way of defining the current terror threat.  Melanie Phillips has described the Conservative leader's remarks as "soft brainlessness" and Stephen Pollard has described Mr Cameron's intervention as a "dangerous... attempt to woo trendy opinion".

Regular readers of ConservativeHome will know that this site is pretty hawkish when it comes to the war on terror.  It's not for reasons of weakness, therefore, that I am happy to defend yesterday's remarks by David Cameron.  It's not a 100% defence.  In a second post Melanie Phillips correctly castigated the Conservative leader for comparing Islamist terrorism with IRA terrorism.  They are of very different natures.  The IRA bombed (successfully) in order to win a place at the table for their nationalist demands.  As Senator Joe Lieberman recently wrote, the terrorists killing men, women and children in Iraq do not want a place at the table - they want to blow it up.

I do not criticise commentators' use of Islamism - it's an academically-established description of the interpretation of Islam that poses an existential threat to western civilisation.  The trouble is, as David Cameron understands, it is a term that is most certainly open to misinterpretation.  Most thoughtful people understand that there's a difference between Islam and Islamism but there must be a danger that the term will be misunderstood by moderate Muslims in Britain and overseas particularly when used by western politicians.  The academic interpretation of Islamist is not universal either.  The main Turkish Islamic party is named 'Islamist'.

So what alternatives might be possible?  Here are some suggestions and I'm sure you could do better...

• Islamic-fascism: This is the term ConservativeHome has tended to use.  The term acknowledges that the terrorist threat is somehow connected with Islam but is a political interpretation of it.  Although some will see not like the retention of the word Islam within the description it remains my favoured term (and, certain to damn it, George W Bush's).
• Jihadi terrorism: This, already in existence, may be just as offensive to many Muslims.  For many Jihad refers to holy struggle rather than violent militarism.  For Shia Muslims, Jihad  is a central component of the faith.
• Wahhabism is the ideology that motivates al-Qaeda but it is a Sunni phenomenon and would not, for example, describe the threat posted by the Iranian regime and the terrorist groups sponsored by Tehran.
• Qutbism.  This refers to Sayyid Qutb - the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, "the man who's ideas would shape Al Qaeda" and who defined the now popular understanding of Jihad.  It's not a term that will be readily understandable but that may be something of a virtue.  Educating people about the term might also educate people about the underlying nature of the enormous threat we all face.

For the moment I still intend to use Islamo-fascism.

Related link: Islamism - from analysis to action (by Paul Goodman MP)

Des Browne fights for his future

In his statement to a packed House of Commons Defence Secretary Des Browne admitted he had "made mistakes" in not initially overruling the Navy's decision to allow the Navy personnel detained in Iraq to sell their stories and that he "profoundly regretted" the impact his decisions have had on the reputation of Britain's armed forces. He defended the Government's response to the capture of the personnel and said the Government had sought to "galvanize" the international community to support British efforts to get the Navy personnel released. He promised to set up an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the capture of Navy personnel and a review in to the media handling of the story.

In response Liam Fox asked a series of detailed questions and highlighted the Defence Secretary's refusal to actually say sorry (which after Dr Fox's prompting he did). The Shadow Defence Secretary said that even though no-one had held Lord Carrington and his team responsible for the invasion of the Falklands when the Islands were invaded he and his Ministers resigned; for them it was "a matter of honour." Liam Fox ended by saying Mr Browne's position was becoming "untenable" because he could not "command the necessary confidence in his decision making".

Andrew Burkinshaw

The civil libertarian Tories

In another sign of the extent to which the Conservative Party has become the party of civil libertarianism a Communicate Research poll for The Independent finds that Labour MPs are much more likely to support police calls for an increase in the maximum time that suspected terrorists can be detained.

It is one of the last remaining issues - including ID cards - on which Labour appears closer to the public mood.

David Cameron has called Labour's 'security measures' "ineffective authoritarianism".  He has promised a border police force with the money that will be saved by scrapping ID cards.

In a recent article for The Sunday Telegraph, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis emphasised greater investment in intelligence, the use of intercept evidence and improved "resilience" to inevitable terrorist attacks.

Related link: The Tories' Molotov-Ribbentrop pact against anti-terror measures (3 November 2005)

Britain's broadcasters are abusing our soldiers

On yesterday's BritainAndAmerica blog I identified BBC coverage of external threats as one of ten key vulnerabilities of our country in these early years of the war on terror.  When our nation's dominant (and publicly-funded) broadcaster subjects failings of coalition forces to incessant scrutiny but offers little public education of the threat posed by regimes like Iran, political leaders will struggle to steel the public for the grave challenges that lie ahead.

It's not just in news output that there is a problem.  Drama is at least as undermining and Channel 4 is at least as worrying as the BBC.  On Thursday evening C4 will broadcast The Mark of Cain.  It portrays British soldiers systematically abusing Iraqi citizens in what Max Hastings (a critic of the Iraq war) calls an outrageous exaggeration.

In today's Times, Conservative MP Michael Gove authors a powerful attack on the fictional drama and on the values of the television executives who are broadcasting it:

"The real moral issue that Channel 4 needs to tackle – indeed, that the broadcast media as a whole must consider – is not so much the need for moral courage on the part of our troops. The men and women in the Gulf show the sort of bravery every day of their professional lives that should leave the rest of us speechless with admiration. No, the real issue is the disturbing moral relativism of our media and their lack of moral clarity at a time of trial for freedom. How can it be right that the only drama yet screened about our troops in Iraq, who are risking everything to help to build a democracy, is one in which they are depicted as sadists and cowards? Why do the people who commission this sort of stuff seem to hate our country, and our values, so much that their first impulse is to see what they can do to blacken the reputation of those who fight in our name? And what does it say about the moral courage of our broadcasters that the broader context of the war our soldiers are fighting, the struggle against militant Islamism, just doesn’t get a look-in? It’s time that the whistle was blown on the broadcasters’ abuse of our soldiers’ mission."

Well said, Michael.

Related link: The author of the drama accounts for his work in an article for The Telegraph.

Hague on Iran's kidnapping of Royal Navy sailors

Earlier today I spoke to William Hague about Iran's capture of 15 British sailors.  The Shadow Foreign Secretary is about to visit the Falkland Islands and will be recording a video diary for ConservativeHome.com.

Related link: Weakness invited Iran's capture of British sailors

McCain feels "deceived" by Cameron

The Tory-GOP divide is becoming more serious.  After Friday's criticisms of George W Bush from Peter Ainsworth, the News of the World has confirmed ConservativeHome's story of January that John McCain is disappointed by David Cameron's more dove-ish policy on Iraq... except the language in the NotW story (not online) is harder.  Senator McCain, who was given star billing at last autumn's Conservative conference, reportedly now sees David Cameron's policy on Iraq as "soft."  He apparently feels "deceived" by David Cameron after the Tory leader opposed the increase in US troops in Iraq.  "There has been a clear divergence between us," a McCain spokesman said.  Fraser Nelson takes up the news in his Sunday column:

"I also hear Rudy Giuliani, ex-New York mayor and conservative hero, considers him a turncoat.  Meanwhile, Bush officials are appalled at his attempts to be seen as standing up to the White House.  Cam is happy to let his lieutenants send out anti-US messages, especially on the environment.  But chasing such cheap votes in Britain has repurcussions in Washington.  This behaviour can be expected of no-hoper Labour backbenchers.  Not from an aspiring statesman."

Asked about John McCain's remarks on Sunday AM, Liam Fox sidestepped the issue and referred to widespread divisions in Washington circles as regards the troops surge.  On defence policy, Dr Fox abided by George Osborne's tough new policy on expenditure announcements and declined to say what a Conservative Government would spend on defence.  He said he would be looking for more burden sharing from NATO Partners and better procurement policies.  The Shadow Defence Secretary said that the Canadian model deserved study.  Canada had increased its defence strength by buying off-the-shelf defence equipment from other nations.  Britain can no longer afford a bespoke military, Dr Fox continued - spending a lot of money on over-budget products for equipment that could be bought more cheaply from other arms manufacturing nations.

Tory report targets unrepresentative Muslim groups

The first report from the Conservatives' national and international security group was somewhat underwhelming but today's heavily-trailed report does not pull its punches (Guardian and BBC).  Hot-on-the-heels of David Cameron's likening of BNP supporters and supporters of sharia law, the N&ISG will strongly question the Muslim Council of Britain's credibility in representing Muslim opinion in Britain.  The MCB has long enjoyed strong support from the Government as the leading voice for British Muslims but it and similar groups are "keener to promote ideologies than the totality of the communities they claim to represent," according to Pauline Neville-Jones of the N&ISG.  The MCB has been criticised for its support for Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an apologist for suicide bombing in Israel.

The report is heavily critical of multiculturalism and calls for a much greater focus on integration than the nurturing of separate identities:

"As Muslim communities enter the third generation of settlement in this country, and in circumstances where a rapidly rising proportion have been educated here, it is anomalous and patronising to individuals to treat them indirectly as members of a group and not directly as citizens in their own individual right on a par with other voters.  Political ghettoisation is the wrong route.  We recommend that an incoming Conservative government moves in the opposite direction: to bring as many Muslims as possible as rapidly as possible into the mainstream of British life on an individual basis equal with that of their fellow non-Muslim citizens."